<p>Why is this issue regarding who is “qualified” consistently repeated inaccurately? The adcoms at prestigious institutions are in agreement - a 4.0 is not more qualified than a 3.7, a 2400 is not more qualified than a 2200. That belief is what sends people into hysterics in the “unfair” nature of admissions. Aren’t these the most respected institutions in the world? Aren’t you missing something if they are all on the same page?</p>
<p>No, @theanaconda, I don’t feel Asians suffer from the same level of discrimination (I didn’t say not any.) The Asian population is respected for intelligence and diligence in academic pursuits. Hispanics and AAs however, are assumed to be almost anything else. You cannot compare your daily experience in this nation compared to people with brown skin - appearance rules the day.</p>
<p>@rhandco, are you actually saying that minority students are on par with the disabled? That once at a prestigious university they need extra help to succeed? Wow, I honestly don’t know how to respond to that, other than you obviously haven’t studied with them.</p>
<p>@fabrizio, why is it you get so angry and insulting when challenged? Most everyone else here at least maintains the illusion of respect. </p>
<p>I have no issue with socioeconomic policies to help the disadvantaged, and also have no argument that the preponderance of URM admits are at least middle class or international. You will not find me ever having purported anything different. What you cannot see is that I support policies to help URM students because they are at a disadvantage based on APPEARANCE. You can be a college professor, wall street tycoon, doctor, lawyer, etc, and you will still be followed in Tiffany and stopped for “driving while black.”</p>
<p>BTW, D went to see “Dear White People” last night with a large group of Penn students, fantastic.</p>
<p>@picktails I’m not following your “brown skin - appearance rules the day” logic. Are you saying Asians look like Whites because their skin is not “brown” enough? I’ve heard this model minority argument too many times. Yes, many Asians are at the top of their class and do well on the SAT/ACT, but there are many more Asians who are children of refugees who are struggling to get by and study hard but not get the same results as those Asians at the top of their class.</p>
<p>Have you seen the look in the eyes of these Asian students who are good students in all respect, but when they tell their friends that they scored 1950 SAT, they hear “that’s all, Johnie Asian down the street got a 2300.” Like many, these Asian students can study just as hard or more so and not achieve the level of academic achievement as the top Asian students. Imagine their difficulties in trying to get into 2nd tier schools let alone a top tier school when some of their Asian peers are light years ahead. These Asian students have the worst of all worlds. Stereotyped in to the model minority, while not being able to achieve at that stereotyped level and because most top schools have an abundance of Asians, knowing he’s got no chance of getting into a top school.</p>
<p>While had this Asian been a Black or Hispanic student with the same scores, he actually could get into a top school. Contrary to @drcharisma belief that there is no racial discrimination in college admissions, the data suggests that that belief is mistaken. Look at the data on Washington and Lee.</p>
<p>I’m not sure why you believe that “adcoms at prestigious institutions are in agreement - a 4.0 is not more qualified than a 3.7, a 2400 is not more qualified than a 2200.” The data suggests otherwise. @Matmaven started a thread about trying to go for a perfect ACT because the data suggests that those students with a perfect ACT score are twice as likely to be accepted to a prestigious school than those who score just slightly lower at 34-35 ACT.</p>
<p>It is one thing for AdCom to say what people want to hear, but the proof is in the data and the data does not support that contention. The same applies to GPA, go look at the numbers, the vast majority of student at top schools are in the top 5% of their high school classes. A 3.7 GPA will not get you into the top 5% of most high school class. This is a myth for those who want to believe so these schools can gobble up applications to keep their acceptance rates low. If you have a 2200 and 3.7, you better have a hook such as be a legacy, an athlete, donate money, etc. </p>
<p>As to @rhandco comments, I agree with you, it doesn’t dignify a response.</p>
<p>Thank you for the perspective, no I have not witnessed contempt within the Asian community. But don’t you see this is the same as others not witnessing the disparaging treatment of URMs by the public?
In general society, Asians are respected and treated as intellectuals - you are referring to consternation within their own community. I am more concerned with society at large.</p>
<p>As to the gpa/scores, are you referring to ORMs? Maybe so, but still - if the applicant brings something to the table valuable to a varied, balanced class, or writes a persuasive, passionate essay, the numbers are only a portion of the equation. It is impossible to determine how much the scores actually sway admissions because we are not privy to the whole application.</p>
<p>Just an example, Dartmouth CDS states its 25/75% scores are:</p>
<p>SAT Critical Reading
680
780</p>
<p>SAT Math
680
780</p>
<p>SAT Writing
680
780</p>
<p>and</p>
<p>SAT Critical Reading
SAT Math
SAT Writing</p>
<p>700-800
71%
70%
71%</p>
<p>600-699
21%
25%
22%</p>
<p>500-599
8%
5%
6%</p>
<p>…do you think all of the sub-730 (basically 1/3 of 2200) average SAT scores are hooked? That’s a lot of hooks. I think it likely that some of the “lower” scoring applicants had an obvious hook like development or athletics, but many probably had compelling essays, awesome teacher recs, unusual experiences, geographic diversity, or something less obvious.</p>
<p>@OHMomof2 Not all but most. Dartmouth had about 200 Blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans in this years class of about 1100 students. Given you are going to be hard pressed to find many from these ethnicities producing 2200 SAT scores, you are probably seeing most of the 2100 under scores coming from these ethnic groups which leaves little for other groups under 2100 and probably under 2200 since any additional space will go to the other students with hooks such as Legacy, athletes and special cases with such scores. Given that the average SAT at Dartmouth is about 2200 then the rest of the non hooked incoming class must have SAT north of 2300.</p>
<p>Even in the Dartmouth example, the upper 25% starts at 2340 but since the breakdown is done in 25-75% range one doesn’t know how far down that 2340 goes down the percentile chart before it drops, especially since you can see that the bottom 25% filled mostly with non-Asian URM and other hooks has an combined 2040 SAT and lower. Given that you also show that there were substantial number of students with scores below 600 on various sections of the SAT, in order to have an average SAT of 2200 the non-hooked students must average above 2300 SAT.</p>
<p>It’s even worse at Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford where there upper 25% is in the 2370 range and their average SAT scores are about 2300.</p>
<p>Believe it or not it is even worse with GPA of 3.7. You will be hard pressed to find many with GPA lower than 3.9 even from non Asian URM.</p>
<p>So what point were you trying to make when you told me that racial preferences are necessary because, quote, “those who attend the worst school districts in the poorest sections of this country are overwhelmingly minorities. Their scores are reflective of innate intelligence and hard work, not excessive tutoring and exposure to contant encouragement to get into the best colleges. They demonstrate grit and determination and are as well qualified as the ORMs with near perfect scores - the administrations know this and are doing a small part to level the playing field”? You just felt like putting that out there even though you acknowledge that most "URM"s at Penn et al. are middle class or better?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Uh huh, and how do these disadvantages prevent the children of highly educated black professionals from ticking the correct bubbles for standardized tests?</p>
<p>“In general society, Asians are respected and treated as intellectuals - you are referring to consternation within their own community. I am more concerned with society at large.”</p>
<p>@picktails Disclaimer: I’m a current Asian high schooler. I’ve heard plenty of disparaging comments about my academic performance (Ex. getting an A- and hearing "What?? That’s an Asian F! You’ve shamed your family! etc.). All of those comments came from my fellow classmates, who come from all races- whites, blacks, hispanics. Asians are seen as intellectuals, but the respect isn’t there. The stereotype for Asian intellectuals is that they’re antisocial, ugly, have no social life, only care about studying, and are mindless grade-grubbing drones. Does that sound respectful to you? People assume that Asian have no leadership or social skills so they’ll hire an Asian to crunch the numbers, but choose a white person over an Asian when filling a leadership position. Please don’t try to marginalize the struggles of Asians by comparing the racism we face to the racism other minorities face. I don’t see why we have compare the “levels of discrimination” Asians and blacks face. At the end of the day, racism is racism.</p>
<p>I highly doubt the lower 25% of SAT scores at Dartmouth is made up of black, hispanic and native american kids myself, but i suppose you can think what you like and so can I since, as far as I know, the stats aren’t readily available. </p>
<p>@OHMomof2 I guess you can believe what you want. The SAT does not show the breakdown of SAT scores by ethnicity for each score but the ACT does. A 33 ACT is about a 2200 SAT. So you would see a similar distribution from the SAT breakdown as the ACT.</p>
<p>In 2012, 222,237 Blacks took the ACT. This is the breakdown of the number of Black students who scored 30 to 36 ACT composite.</p>
<p>5 Black students scored a 36 ACT
14 Black students scored a 35 ACT
49 Black students scored a 34 ACT
111 Black students scored a 33 ACT
202 Black students scored a 32 ACT
332 Black students scored a 31 ACT
553 Black students scored a 30 ACT</p>
<p>There were less than 200 Black students to score a 33 ACT in the entire nation. Just assuming that they all went to the top 100 colleges then that would average out to less than 2 per school. Unless you think all these students went to Dartmouth, there is no way for there to be any significant number of Blacks in the top 75% of Dartmouth freshman class based upon SAT/ACT.</p>
<p>The distribution is similar for Hispanics and Native Americans.</p>
<p>Compare the above with Asian students.</p>
<p>There were 68,080 Asian students who took the ACT but there were about 12,000 Asian students who scored above 30 ACT. In fact, there were more Asians to score 36 ACT than Blacks scoring above 33 ACT. </p>
<p>218 Asian students with 36 ACT vs 179 Black students with 33 ACT or higher</p>
<p>It is obvious that blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans are being admitted to top schools with lower SAT scores on average than non-“URMs.” The argument should not be that they aren’t, which would again suggest that affirmative action isn’t necessary. The argument should be that this doesn’t matter. It’s still a problematic argument, but at least it isn’t as horribly flawed as “there are just as many high-scoring ‘URMs’ as ‘ORMs’!” There aren’t.</p>
<p>I understand the national stats, what I am contesting is the notion that there aren’t a significant number of ORMs who bring athletic ability or something else to the table in that lower scoring group. </p>
<p>Fair point. 1/4th of 1112 is 278 students. Even if all 184 "URM"s were in that quartile, which is unlikely, there would still be 94 students who would have to be white or “ORM” (i.e. Asian).</p>
<p>@OHMomof2 Now you bring a different issue into play, “what I am contesting is the notion that there aren’t a significant number of ORMs who bring athletic ability or something else to the table in the lower scoring group.”</p>
<p>I commented that the lower scoring group is mostly those with “Hooks” so yes there will be a few ORMs that will fall into this category, but given that Asians are already well represented at most top colleges, there will not be a significant number of ORMs in the lower group.</p>
<p>This brings me to Washington and Lee. It is the only school to have published its admission data broken down by ethnicity in 2013 where Asians are admitted at rate similar to other URMs but significantly lower than the admission rate of White applicants. It has since closed public access to this data.</p>
<p>If there was one school that could lose a discriminatory admission suit by Asian students, it would be Washington and Lee. The other top schools can hide behind high Asian student population compared to the general population, but W&L cannot use this as an excuse since its Asian student population is about 3% compared to 5% in the general population. </p>
<p>I am starting to believe that W&L accepts Asian student almost solely for their high test scores since based upon my estimates, the average Asian student enrolled at W&L has a 2300+ SAT compared to the schools average of 2100 SAT.</p>
<p>@fabrizio There seems to be a quota of about 20% Asians at top schools, it would be difficult to believe that a significant number of the remaining 94 students would be ORM vs White if the school has admitted that quota limit and given the abundance of Asian applicants with top scores to Dartmouth. Please remember there are international students and others such as two race students, undeclared race, disabled and other “hooks” vying for room at the bottom group as well.</p>
<p>It kind of sounds like you think Asian students only get admitted for high test scores? In looking at some college specific boards here, like, say, Brown, I see a fair number of Asian students admitted with lower scores than those of other students (of several races) who were not admitted</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I am saying i think there are likely a lot of white, and perhaps Asian, kids in the lower group who are hooked in some way other than being URM. Athletes, musicians, full payers, whatever.</p>
<p>@OHMomof2 If there is a “quota” then why would lower scoring Asians get in if there are higher scoring Asians in the applicant pool. If there isn’t a quota then I would think your beliefs might be more the case and the admission rate of Asians and all other ethnicity should be about the same at every test score bucket. </p>
<p>So Asians, URMs and Whites should be admitted at about the same rate for those who score 2300, and at 2200, and at 2100, and at 2000 SAT. But this isn’t the case. </p>
<p>Study after study shows that Asians need to higher scores than any ethnicity including Whites to get into top schools at every test score bucket. I would like to see the world like you do, but the data does not support that view of the world. </p>
<p>At Washington and Lee the situation is even worse. There is about a 350 point difference in average SAT between Asians and other URMs, but what’s worse is that there is about 200 point difference in average SAT between Asians and Whites. There are over 500 Asian applicants to W&L each year and only about 50 are accepted. If these same Asian kids were admitted at the same rate as Whites, over 150 would have been accepted but the average SAT would still be higher than White students who were accepted.</p>
<p>Right. Lower scoring applicants in ALL those categories sometimes get in over higher scoring applicants in the same category. That suggests that something is going on beyond a straightforward race quota based on scores…no? </p>
<p>@OHMomof2 Agreed that tests are part of the factor in admission decision under “holistic” method. But so are high school grades. But for all practical purposes, the two most important factors are test scores and grades for any AdCom. Try applying to Stanford with a 1000 SAT and 4.0 GPA see where that gets you even with great ECs, essays, teacher recommendations and being a URM. </p>
<p>Your comment “Lower scoring applicants in ALL those categories sometimes get in over higher scoring applicants in the same category. That suggests that something is going on beyond a straightforward race quota based on scores…no?”</p>
<p>Well, possibly but not likely. I believe it is the effect of holistic look at applications as a totality of all applicants. The schools are trying to give some appearance of a diversified student body not just in race but in differing levels of academic achievement. Imagine if a student looked up a school and saw a 25%-75% range of 2300-2370 SAT, would you bother to apply if you scored 2100?</p>
<p>Prestige is partly based upon perception of exclusivity and acceptance rate is part of that mystic. If students don’t apply than part of that mystic and perception of prestige goes away even if those that do apply are high achievers. Look at University of Chicago, it is a top school with rather mediocre acceptance rates at 25% compared to peer schools that had a 10% acceptance rate just 6 years ago. It went on a rampage to lower the acceptance rate to where it is now at 9%. As a result UChicago not only increase perception of prestige, it is now in the top 5 based upon USNW rankings from the mid-teens before the lowering acceptance rate push.</p>
<p>URMs with the exception of Asians are accepted at higher rates at every score bucket except at a few schools, so racial quotas do seem to exist. But if you look at the data more closely as @Matmaven stated in his thread about debunking the myth that getting a perfect ACT doesn’t matter, it does seem there is a positive correlation between high test scores and acceptance rates. The higher the test score the higher the acceptance rate. In his review of the data, those applicants with 36 ACT were twice as likely to be admitted than those who scored 34-35 ACT .</p>
<p>If you are a URM with the exception of Asians, if you scored a perfect or near perfect SAT or ACT, you are a shoo in to be accepted at the top schools. That is not the case with Whites or Asians.</p>
<p>Point taken, I hadn’t considered that. But you have to admit from a personal safety standpoint the actions of racist, thoughtless individuals are quite different towards different ethnicities.</p>